https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_csAtVGNHMcIf Rudy Giuliani wants Americans to be afraid of socialized medicine, he might want to hire someone to check his facts.
In a radio advertisement released last week in New Hampshire, Giuliani said, "I had prostate cancer, five, six years ago. My chances of surviving prostate cancer – and thank God I was cured of it – in the United States: 82 percent. My chances of surviving prostate cancer in England: only 44 percent under socialized medicine."
Some damning stats indeed: if true, men in Great Britain would be just half as likely to survive a common disease as their American counterparts. But the numbers just aren't true.
The Washington Post's Michael Dobbs looked into Giuliani's claim and learned that he got the figures from an unsourced article in the City
Journal, published by the conservative Manhattan Institute. But when
Dobbs talked to cancer experts, they
(Links to U.S. figures here, U.K. figures here.)
That's still a significant gap. But Dobbs points out that early screening for prostate cancer is far more common in the U.S. than the
U.K..
When one looks at mortality rates, the two countries are virtually identical at 25 prostate cancer deaths per 100,000 men.
Up to this point, Giuliani's mistake is just that: a mistake. After all, who among us hasn't quoted a few bad stats? Granted, we weren't running for President, but Giuliani's still human. When confronted with the new numbers, though, his communications manager responded,
One would expect that, like anyone else who finds their assertions corrected by experts, Giuliani would accept the new information and incorporate it into his view of the world. Instead, he won't admit that he's wrong, and apparently clings to the faulty – one might say, cherry-picked – information, reality be damned. Sound familiar?
We report, you decide.
Rudy Wrong On Cancer Survival Chances [Washington Post]
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